MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Thursday, the 28-nation bloc and Ottawa were expected to sign CETA at the joint EU-Canada Summit. However, on Tuesday, European Parliament President Martin Schulz said there was little chance that CETA would be signed as its ratification stumbled in Belgium.
"The current situation, unprecedented in the history of the EU common commercial policy, is very serious. The impact of this stalemate will be on each and every negotiation the EU is currently conducting, not only on TTIP [Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership], as the credibility of the EU as a negotiation partner is endangered," Luisa Santos of BusinessEurope, Brussels-based union of the European national business federations, that has actively lobbied for CETA, warned.
She added that the EU's failure to sign the deal would have "a serious impact on the EU’s image in the world and it will be more difficult in the future to find countries interested in negotiating with us."
Fabio De Masi, a German member of the European Parliament for the leftist Die Linke party, shared the opinion — though from quite a different angle — that CETA's failure would likely see the other trade deals buried alongside it and reduce to zero the chances of reaching the accord on TTIP in the first place.
"TTIP is off the table for now… What the recent events around CETA have shown is that in future trade negotiators won't have an easy ride trying to shield their narrow interests from the public eye. People want to know what is going on behind those closed doors and want to have a say in the outcome," De Masi, a staunch opponent of CETA and TTIP, told Sputnik on Tuesday.
On Monday Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said the nation was "not in a position to sign CETA" amid the Walloon government, the Brussels government, the government of Federation Wallonia-Brussels and the French Community Commission concerns about the deal. Under the Belgian federal laws, every region has a right to reject the agreement.
Apart from CETA, Brussels is negotiating the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with Washington. Besides, the EU has finalized but not yet implemented free trade agreements with Singapore and Vietnam and economic partnership agreements with South African Development Community, West Africa, East Africa countries and Ecuador.
